


me without you (all i ever wanted)

by starbrightlovers



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-23 00:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3748681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbrightlovers/pseuds/starbrightlovers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael Jones did not believe in the soulmate system introduced half a year ago. He wanted to play shitty video games and study electrical engineering at UT, not find the five other people who were supposedly his "destiny".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5:40pm, September 5th, 2015 [michael's thoughts]

**Author's Note:**

> hey friends!! sorry i haven't updated logged for a while, i've been in a serious writing funk. i will hopefully have something for it later this week :D
> 
> in the meantime, have this! mostly this is prologue, but i'm uploading the first proper chapter along with it. i'll be adjusting the ships and characters as it progresses (if this is well-received).
> 
> brief brief mentions of abuse and suicide!

The soulmate system was half a year old and it was broken from the start. At least, in Michael's opinion.

Two months before his senior year ended, a group of "scientists" visited Stage Five Academy. They were accompanied by a cart full of yellow envelopes, the kind full of bubble wrap for fragile items. Each one had a silver chain and in most cases, one or two gemstone charms. They attached easily, and you had the choice to wear them as a necklace or bracelet. You couldn't break it or adjust it, there were now "trained specialists" who you would have to pay to fix it.

The jewelry was meant to find everyone their soulmate, so more people would have a happier life and produce more children. The gemstone would heat up if you were near your soulmate and settle into a pleasant warmth once you touched, or it would freeze over and signify that your soulmate was no longer living.

Realistically, the only thing that changed was people believed they had a legitimate reason to search frantically for love. There was also a new way to bully people. If you were already in your last years of high school and hadn't found your soulmate, you were shamed. Even worse was if you had more than one soulmate. The gemstones looked nice and people at first admired that, but quickly decided that it was gross to have more than one because a single person shouldn't be in love with so many people.

Michael had five. All unpolished and all room temperature. He'd only felt the tiniest bit of heat in the school hallways a few times, but not whoever was causing it. And he didn't care in the slightest.

It wasn't that he wanted to be alone, or that he was aromantic or asexual. He was openly bi, and had been since the eighth grade when his friend Kerry had jokingly kissed him in front of their whole homeroom (to which Michael responded "Dude, I don't think I'm straight." Their teacher was not particularly amused.)

No, he just didn't believe in the system. Kids had ended up matched with their abusers or killed themselves because they thought they were taking too long to locate their match. It wasn't a fair way for things to work, and probably some weird government scheme to distract everyone from more important issues. Besides, why would he want to find five other people just because he's "supposed to" or it's his "destiny".

He figured eventually one of them would show up and they'd have to talk things out and figure out where they wanted to go with things. He just always assumed it would be a lot later in life and not the first week of university.


	2. 4:23pm, September 5th, 2015 [GameStop]

Michael Jones was on a mission: Find the shittiest and cheapest games for the Xbox 360. So far he'd discovered three crappy animal games for a buck each at GoodWill, and now he was on the way to a GameStop. He'd already visited one, but come up empty-handed there and decided to try another. It wasn't anything important, he just needed time fillers for when he didn't have engineering classwork, and he didn't have the money for the more popular games.

As he entered the store, he could feel one of the stones on his wrist heating up. Michael let out a small "Fuck," in realization, but kept moving anyways. His assumption was that his soulmate was a cashier or someone at the front desk, so he walked the opposite way. He was so, so wrong. The smoky quartz was starting to burn his skin, and before he could turn and leave, someone was tapping him on the shoulder and the burning and shifted into a pleasant warmth.

"Hi?" asked the tapper. "I'm Ray. I'm pretty sure you're my soulmate."

Michael completely froze, terrified to turn around and face the situation. He couldn't manage any words yet, just a quiet "Oh," noise.

"Are you okay? I've heard about people being shocked but usually they're-"

"I don't believe in soulmates," Michael whispered.

"Oh, well that's fine. I'm aromantic!" Ray replied with a small laugh.

"Um."

"You can turn around," he said gently. "I'm not all that gross looking."

Still filled with fear and hesitancy, Michael slowly turned to face his soulmate.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" Ray asked cheerfully, smiling an awful lot for someone who didn't want romance.

"Why are you so excited about this if you're aromantic?" Michael blurted.

Instead of being offended, Ray laughed and replied, "Let me take you to dinner and I'll explain."


End file.
